Caen reject Arsenal bid for striker

Arsenal have had an initial bid for teenage striker M’Baye Niang rejected by Caen.

The 17-year-old, who scored twice in 23 appearances last term, undertook a trial last week at London Colney just so Arsene could jokingly ask Steve Bould, “Caen he kick it?”

It appears he could, although not so well that the boss decided to offer anything more than some magic beans and Marouane Chamakh’s hair gel.

Going public on the Gunners approach, Caen president Jean-Francois Fortin described the bid as, “not derogatory, but not quite what we wanted.”

Valued in the £5 million bracket, it remains to be seen whether we follow up with a second bid for Niang. Given Newcastle, Manchester City and the Spuds are also sniffing around, it’s not surprising his price is being inflated.

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113 COMMENTS

Hmm. I’m all for strengthening our youth team, excellent as it already is, but surely there are more important signings to capture? I just hope that we’re not still looking at signing a dozen 11 year olds while two of our important first teamers swan off up North.

Mmm. I’m feeling decidedly less optimistic than I was a few weeks ago. I hope we’re not in for another terrible summer and start to the season.

Yeah, but the Ox was bought with the full knowledge he’d be put straight into the first team. This guy has ‘loan at Bolton for a couple of years’ written all over him.

Not saying that’s a bad thing at all, and I’m not saying I wouldn’t welcome him to the club – but this is now the only news story that Arsenal seem to be involved in. I desperately don’t want a repeat of last summer. Could you imagine if we just get this guy, we let Robin’s transfer saga stretch until Aug 31st, then he leaves? The papers would have a field day with that one. “17 year old striker to take reigns from RvP”.

for fucks sake. Stop moaning about Squillaci. He was in the France national team when we bought him. There was no reason to think he would be that bad. It was worth a punt and didn’t work. Everyone makes bad signings now and again.

We have made an overall profit from transfers over 15 yrs (one of the only clubs in uk to do so)which has beem invested in the club (infrastructure e.g stadium and players) in that period we have won trophies and played in europes elite competition and become one of the best clubs in the world. And all you can think of is squillaci?
I don’t normally cus people on line but I for one am fed up with the likes of no backbone moaning little children like you that are quick to cuss and put the boot in when they ever they see an opportunity!!
You guys aint diehards – you guys are worse than prawnsandwich idiots

Bid was “i have no effin idea, caen holding out for no less than “i have no effin idea” now that citeh are involved. The rest is newspaper hype trying to incite a misguided agenda that’s it’s clearly working.

What’s wrong with this world you ask? Man Citeh! As soon as a kid like this becomes “visible” to the bigger leagues and there’s interest this piddly club are resigned to having to sell the kid they’re gonna squeeze every drop out of it. Especially with the overspending Oil City being interested & Spuds riding Arsenal’s scouting coat tails as per usual.

cannot resist thinking we don’t necessarily need another youth prospect in the department of strikers. especially for 5M, which is kind of a big amount for a seventeen year old bloke. would rather see some promising midfielder signed for that kind of money. still, if he’s worth it… up to Arsene.

what has one thing to do with the other? i’m not against spending big sums for talented prospects, i’m just against spending those for prospects in the areas that are already filled for now. we’ve got quite a few talented forwards, let them evolve and see where we’re at. and then, in the next pre-season or in two years, let’s think about buying others. until that time, let’s focus on more important areas, i.e. midfield. my opinion.

WHY do we have to spend 5m on a young striker, when we have already splashed on Campbell, Wellington, and we have Afobe, also we play 4-3-3 with ONE striker, which is already covered by Giroud and Podolski for years.

That 5m could be spent on putting in a higher bid for a player we actually need.

I think couldn’t give a rats ass about whether he’l fit in/have a chance to play or not. They take joy in blowing the rest of the clubs away from the table.
Ever heard Mancini talk about potential transfer targets?. Trust me he talks utter shit alright!.

Something like “he’s a good player and we ofcourse want good players but he’s playing for them now……blah.blah”….. Fuck off!

Why do people think that Kroenke has any impact on Arsenal’s finances at all?? He is just the owner of the club, he doesn’t take dividends out, and in the Arsenal accounts you can clearly see where all money made from our operating profit goes – Debt and Interest repayment, capital expenditure and small amounts to our cash reserve,

It doesn’t matter how many times you say it, some people just can’t understand that we don’t pay out dividends. Kronke isn’t the owner, just the majority shareholder. I can understand fans annoyance If he were using funds generated to pay off the stadium debt thus making the club more attractive to a new purchaser, but we aren’t as there are severe redemption penalties if we did.
The accounts come out every year and it’s quite clear where our money goes, the problem is the wage structure where low acheived are getting similar wages to our best players. Kronke for all his faults isn’t just pocketing proceeds from transfers.

Ive no problem paying a decent chunk of money for this lad if he’s another Anelka, but they are few and far between. Even the Ox has shown that despite all his talent, he still has alot to learn and should only be a squad member if we are serious about challenging for honours.

Buying this player is a good idea. Not all of our youth prospect will make the grade for the 1st team, so its always wise to have back ups!! However, why am I not surprised that Wenger has offered a packet of Smarties and a folded up fiver for a quality player, all it does is piss of the Caen board and prove to the player that we don’t actually value him. Now he will head for Man Shitty or the filthy Spuds. Well done again Arsenal!!

Wenger usually only pays what he thinks they are worth, not what the selling club or rival clubs think. If he thinks he’s only worth ‘a packet of Smarties and a folded up fiver’ then that’s probably what he’s worth as a 17 year old who will need to be trained.
Arsene has a pretty good record with getting youth players in for a reasonable price that either make the step up to the first team or earn the club a small but tidy sum of money.

I genuinely wouldn’t put that kind of prank past Arsene, although, more seriously, there must be SOME reason why he took him on trial, publicly. Remember this was a man who refused to say Djourou’s name in public so as not to alert others to his quality (I know, some people might have a pop at that, but it’s the mindset behind it, keeping everything on the quiet…). Perhaps he’s trying to get Man City interested in a player to eke out the transfer window so we can keep Van Persie… or not. We have no idea what goes on with Arsenal’s transfer dealings. But we do know that there is method to it this summer at least. Arsene seems to be acknowledging some of his mistakes in the Podolski and Giroud signings… I wonder what he is doing with this…

We had to get him on trial since we were never really tracking him. His goal scoring/eye catching performances at the end of the season is what endeared wenger to him. The fact that he went on with the trial tells us he might be interested in a move to the arse so we just gotta up the ante. 6milli should do it.

The problem with humour that starts of with the sarcastic bit first, is that most people decide if you are going to get a rollicking for being a thicky after the first sentence. You can tell from all the thumbs down that many people didn’t bother to read your second paragraph. Worry not. I can tell you’re a smart feller taking the piss out of the cavemen.

To give my opinion on this. If we do sign him I doubt he will like being in the Reserves when he was already playing regularly in Ligue 1. I say we offer 5 million pounds + Chamakh or Park (one of them have to go; or do we want 4 senior strikers on the team) and then loan him back to Caen for 1 season.

That way we can officially monitor his progress and get him back and then next season loan him out in the Premier League. (NOTE: I doubt loaning him out now to a Premier League team would work considering he is 17).

Yeah only that affelay is under a cloud of long term injuries plus he’s at his peak so we risk a huge loss on the sell on price. He’s a good player alright but the risk are just bad business (i think?). With M’baye, he’s young, no injuries and if he develops into the real deal that’s a huge sell on price right there. Let’s take this guy, chambo didn’t turn out so bad.

He will just be another one who will bite the dust at Arsenal. There have been so many like him in the past, with huge potentials, who could not make it to the first team. Arsenal nurture them, guide them into decent players, and then dump them for meagre profits. There is a whole list of players like, Barazite, Sunu, Quincy-Owusu, Simpson, Vela, Merida, Stokes, Freeman, Larsson, and more recently Ozyakup and Bunjaku. All these players were thought to be the “nest big thing”. I really hoped to see Barazite, Vela, Merida and Ozyakup in Arsenal colors.

With Afobe, Wellington and Campbell already on the books, I dont really see when and where Niang will make an impression for Arsenal.

If Wellington plays a dozen games for The Arsenal I’ll bite off my left gonad. We’re not going to turn down signing what we think is a great young player because we have another one with an attitude problem on loan elsewhere.

“I just heard of this guy last week and I’ve thought about it and decided – he sucks. Why, you ask? Well I just thought of some other players who in my opinion sucked, and figured he must be like them for some reason. I mean, they all play football, right? Exactly. That’s fucking science!”

This kind of deal is the one that allows clubs with finite resources to stay competative with Chelsea or ManCity. Instead of an all-around striker for 50m, you buy 10 of the young one for similar amount and then sell them off in 5 years time, hoping 2 or 3 can reach 25-30m each.

Wenger sees deals like this as investment, we, fans and press as general, see them as an immediate solution to our trophyless drought. Of course it does not bode well to us… Doesn’t mean Arsenal should not do those kind of deals though

This is my whole point why are we looking for a sell on price who gives a fuck thats why we in this mess, we buy young develop and sell on when the at the performance level to actually win us the league and weve been doin it so long now even fans arent happy wen we cant make a profit in the future…. do me a favour.

Buying players has been going on for ages but not in the manner that Blacburn then Chelsea then Citeh did where you blow everyone out the water. I don’t think there is resentment if your team grows organically with a couple of star buys, a couple of home grown lads and a couple of less attractive buys, but if you just offer silly money and walk all over people it’s hard to swallow. I expect City have seen what chaos they caused us last summer by not bidding for Na$ri until August and will do the same with RVP hoping to disrupt the start of our season again.

And that is why we string them along til August 31st and then tell them to “Fuck off we’re keeping him.” It won’t damage them, but it will irritate them, and give me a laugh (which is the most important part, of course)

So if he’s worth £6m then Giroud must actually be worth around… well, a couple of Ronaldos at least?

I actually quite like the idea that this is an elaborate “bait and switch” con that Wenger is operating, to deflect attention from the *real* deal, which is the prising away from Delia of Grant Holt that will spark our trophy winning revival next season.

Grant Holt would win us trophies even more decisively than Joey Barton would, and as we all know, we would have won the league two seasons ago had Joey been marauding the middle of the park in red and white – he told us that himself!

off topic and I know how banner adds work, regardless it is pretty annoying to have some banner add for Liverpools new away kit on the top of the page, with Gerrard, The Racist Cheating Biter, and the Child Rapist look-a-like (Skertl) staring down at me like a bunch of thugs.

[…] other news, and despite reports by Sky Sports who are getting a lot wrong this summer, we haven’t had a bid accepted for M’Baye Niang, the young Caen striker. Their president said our approach was “not derogatory, but not quite […]

[…] other news, and despite reports by Sky Sports who are getting a lot wrong this summer, we haven’t had a bid accepted for M’Baye Niang, the young Caen striker. Their president said our approach was “not derogatory, but not quite […]